Skip to main content

Between the Wars: the ‘Little Theatre Movement’

  • Chapter
Other Theatres

Part of the book series: Communications and Culture

  • 15 Accesses

Abstract

The First World War accelerated the changes which had been taking place within the commercial theatre. Rents in London quadrupled during the four years, and when combined with the escalating costs of productions it resulted in the ousting of the old Victorian and Edwardian actor-managers — many of whom had retired or died by 1918 — by business conglomerates to whom the drama was just one among many of their concerns. Whatever the failings of the actor-managers they did at the very least bring a personal touch to the running of their playhouses.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Asa Briggs, Mass Entertainment: The Origins of a Modern Industry, (Adelaide, Australia, 1960) p. 16.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Richard Findlater, Banned! (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967) p. 141.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Allardyce Nicoll, The English Theatre (London: Nelson, 1936) p. 188.

    Google Scholar 

  4. 25 Years of the British Drama League (London: BDL, 1945) no pagination.

    Google Scholar 

  5. O. Brockett and R. Findlay A Century of Innovation (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1973) p. 470.

    Google Scholar 

  6. David Hutchison The Modern Scottish Theatre (Glasgow: Molendinar Press, 1967) p. 32.

    Google Scholar 

  7. L. du Garde Peach, ‘Your World Has No Right to be Rosy’ in Amateur Theatre, 25 September 1936.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Norman Marshall, The Other Theatre (London: John Lehmann, 1947) p. 88.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Michael O hAodha Theatre in Ireland (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974) p. 110.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Matthews, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, p. 71.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Goldie, op. cit., p. 214.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sybil and Russell Thorndike, Lilian Baylis (London: Chapman and Hall, 1938) p. 56.

    Google Scholar 

  13. See Robert Speaight in Harcourt Williams (ed.), Vic-Wells: The Work of Lilian Baylis (London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1938) p. 20.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Veitch, op. cit., p. 54.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Philip Lorraine, ‘Yiddish Theatres in London’ in Drama (June 1939).

    Google Scholar 

  16. N. Monck, ‘The Maddermarket Theatre and the Playing of Shakespeare’s in Shakespeare Survey (Cambridge University Press, 1959) p. 72.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Charles Rigby, Maddermarket Mondays (Norwich, Roberts, 1933) p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich (issued by the theatre; no date or pagination).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Terence Gray, Dance-Drama (Cambridge: Heffer, 1926) p. 27.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Marshall, op. cit., p. 63.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Righy, op. cit., p. 105.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Richard Cave, Terence Gray and the Cambridge Festival Theatre (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1980) p. 36.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Quoted in B. J. Utting, The Festival Theatre (unpublished volume of 1973 held at Cambridge Public Library) p. 10.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Utting, op. cit., p. 38.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Marshall, op. cit. p. 44.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Of Course We Remember the Gate, programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 12 August 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Nigel Playfair, The Story of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith (London: Chatto and Windus, 1925) p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Hamilton and Baylis, op. cit., p. 16.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Giles Playfair, My Father’s Son (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1937) p. 29.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Stuart Samuels, ‘English Intellectuals and Politics in the 1930s’, in Philip Reiff (ed.), On Intellectuals (New York, 1969) p. 227.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Letter of 1965 from Auden quoted in N. Jacobs and P. Ohlsen (eds), Bertholt Brecht in Britain (London TQ Publications, 1977) p. 67

    Google Scholar 

  32. Group Theatres programmes held at the British Library: The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, November 1936.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Robert Medley, Drawn from the Life (London: Faber, 1983) p. 139.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Michael Sidnell, Dances of Death (London: Faber, 1984) p. 76.

    Google Scholar 

  35. St John Ervine, op. cit., p. 156.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Noreen Branson and Margot Heinemann, Britain in the Nineteen Thirties (St Albans: Granada, 1971) pp. 274–5.

    Google Scholar 

  37. O. Brockett and R. Findlay, A Century of Innovation, op. cit., p. 509.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Copyright information

© 1987 Andrew Davies

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Davies, A. (1987). Between the Wars: the ‘Little Theatre Movement’. In: Other Theatres. Communications and Culture. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18723-2_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics